202	NOTES ON   SOME   OTHER	[1818
Fearful and self-suspicious as I always feel,
when I seem to see an error of judgment in
Shakespeare, yet I cannot reconcile the cool,
and, as Warburton calls it, £ rational and conse-
quential', reflection in these lines with the
anonymousness, or the alarm, of this Gentleman,
or Messenger, as he is called in other editions.
Ib.    King's speech:
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.
Proof, as indeed all else is, that Shakespeare
never intended us to see the King with Hamlet's
eyes; though, I suspect, the managers have long
done so.
Ib.   Speech of Laertes:
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil I
Laertes is a good character, but, etc.   wabbttkton,
Mercy on Warburton's notion of goodness!
Please to refer to the seventh scene of this act :
I will do it;
And for this purpose I'll anoint my sword, etc.,
uttered by Laertes after the King's description
of Hamlet:
He being remiss,
Most generous, and free from, all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils.
Yet I acknowledge that Shakespeare evidently
wislies, as much as possible, to spare the character
of Laertes, to break the extreme turpitude of
his consent to become an agent and accomplice